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Question #2B – Sin – no sinless people, unforgivable sin, repentance

For ALL have sinned.
– Who is included in “all”?
– Are there any sinless people? Or Once a person repents, is he now sinless and not having to worry about sin anymore?
– When we sin, who are we sinning against?

Repentance.
We can repent of our sins. Are there any sins that will not be forgiven? (Scripture needed here) Working through this last section will help to answer the bigger question coming up.

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The Bible makes it clear to us that we are sinners from birth. While we are here, we choose to go our own way. Every person since the beginning of time has sinned in action, word, and thought. When the Bible says “all” have sinned, it means none of us are exempt no matter how good we act, how wonderful we think we are, or to whom we are related. Our “goodness” or our (self) righteousness is as filthy rags (Isa 64:6). That’s a nice way of saying that even on our best days, our good works are about as valuable as a pile of used sanitary napkins or gauze that was used to cover leaky pus. Romans 14:23b states that whatsoever is not done in faith is sin. If we are out of God’s will, donating a fortune to charity, saving children from a burning building, cooking from our kitchens for the homeless, etc. is nice, but we can’t work our way to Heaven because we are still covered in sin.The easiest way to show ourselves if we have broken the law is to examine ourselves in light of the law of God. We learned that we sin because of the law (Romans 7:7). The laws most familiar to us are the 10 Commandments.Short version:
1) You will have no other gods.
2) Don’t make any idols.
3) Don’t use My name in vain.
4) Remember the Sabbath day.
5) Honor your mother and father.
6) Don’t murder.
7) Don’t commit adultery.
8) Don’t steal.
9) Don’t lie.
10) No coveting (wanting what others have).

God’s standard is perfection because He’s a perfect God. Once we break one law, we are guilty of breaking the whole law. The purpose of the law is to show us how we fall short of God’s standards. If you take your brother’s cookies from him every time you have lunch, the only way you’d know it is wrong is if I take the time to tell you it’s stealing. Once there is an expectation stated or written down you are without excuse for not obeying.

One sin is a stench in the nostrils of God and is enough to sentence us to hell. Lucifer/Satan & other fallen angels rebelled once against God and have been sentenced to destruction. One act of disobedience from us deserves the same punishment. We rebel on a continual basis. From birth, we rebelled by not listening to parents and our teachers. We think mean thoughts towards others. We do things we know aren’t right. We rail against God and dare Him to unleash His wrath on us because we haven’t been penalized yet. God is long-suffering, patient, and merciful to give us a chance to hear from Him. When we continue to turn our back on God, we tell Him we hate Him and want to spend eternity without Him. We voluntarily make the choice to go to hell because we have decided not to fulfill our roles here. Think about it. If you worked on a project and designed a program to run a certain way, and it kept running haywire and only responded to your enemy’s input, would you keep it or scrap the parts that didn’t work? We are always responding to one of two beings. We are either keeping ourselves enslaved to sin and responding in obedience to the devil, or we are willing servants of God and responding in obedience to Him. It’s only one or the other.

Unforgivable sin:

There is only one sin listed as unforgivable – the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:31). This is important to know because people have a tendency to add sins and state they are unforgivable. However, the Lord Jesus Christ stated this is the only sin that will not be forgiven. Not to go too deeply into this so we don’t change topics yet, it basically says that when you reject the Holy Spirit revealing Christ to you, you are rejecting Christ, Who is your only hope for salvation since being unsaved will keep you from Heaven.

The good news about this is that no one is so entrenched in sin that God is not able to bring him out. I’ve worked with many suicidal patients that included war vets.One of the common questions I was asked was if I thought God would forgive them. Look again at the list of unforgivable sins, and memorize it. If it’s not on that list, God can forgive anyone that repents.

Why is it so important to let people know about sins?

Because sinners are headed for hell. This isn’t about us claiming people will go to hell if they do certain actions. The Bible states that we start out on the path to hell and had better cry out to God to save us.
“18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” – John 3:18

People are condemned because the laws we break testify against us. The penalty is death and hell. Hell is a place of torment that was created for satan & his angels but will also be used for all who reject the Lord. There’s no escape, no plea bargaining, no talking your way out, no time off for good behavior. Because we understand there is a stiff penalty for sins – the wrath of God – we are required to warn others. (This passage was written to the prophet sent to Israel, but it applies to us because we are sent into the world.)

“8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.” – Ezekiel 33:8-9

Repentance – We are to come before God and admit our sins before Him. Every sin committed is committed against God. (If we’ve wronged our neighbor, we have still broken God’s law and sinned. We make things right with our neighbor and repent to God.)

“9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9

BUT…we still have a problem – sinners are headed to hell.
We need salvation.

“6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” – Isa 55:6-7
– We are told to look for and cry out to Him while He is near. The Lord will not be lost, but there will come a time when He will no longer wait for men to turn to Him. The Bible says that we are dead in our sins, so the only way we can turn to Him is if He calls us to Himself. If we can hear Him calling and convicting us, we need to respond because another day is not promised.

“9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” – 2 Peter 3:9

Sin affects all of us and caused us to be separated from God.

We were born sinners and are in a state of condemnation headed for hell.

There is only one sin that will not be forgiven, which means every person has the opportunity to repent and come to God.

The Lord is holy and cannot tolerate sin.

Hell was not created for man but awaits all those who refuse to come to God.

The Lord desires that ALL people come to repentance. He is patient and is giving us time to call to Him, but He will not hold be His wrath forever.

This section was a little longer so I didn’t forget a couple things. Even the worst of the worst offenders can turn to God. It’s really easy to give up on people when we compare what we’ve done to what they’ve done. They may have a pile of wicked things testifying against them, but in the end, 1,000,000,000,000,000 sins compared to if we only committed 2 sins would still land us in the same place when judged by the law – hell and forever separated from God.We cannot effectively present the Gospel if we skip over sin, dance over hell, or act like it doesn’t exist. The Gospel states that Christ died for sins according to Scripture. If people do not understand how God feels about sin and the requirement to atone for it (the shedding of blood), then His sacrifice will seem a waste. A person cannot truly repent for sinning against God until he understands how His sin is an offense to Him. He spend quite a bit of time talking about God’s love, but His wrath is just as strong. We are to warn people to flee the wrath to come.So that leads us to the next big topic – salvation. I’ll put that in another post.